Often they do go back and forth the whole way, and I don't know until the very end what the last line of the book is going to be. That was true here - the very last line of the book was the last thing that happened.

It's one of my favorite times of day. I'll have an array of notes, things that I want to think about. Something will start to take shape, and I'll play around with it. It's not usually an intense time. It's sort of a playful time. But it's when some really good thoughts arise.

Ideas mostly come from the work itself. Often when I'm drawing, the words will be bouncing around in my head, and when I'm writing, ideas about the drawing happen.

I started thinking about [ what book is going to go next] when I was working on As Easy as Falling Off the Face of the Earth.

I generally have an idea where I want to go, but I don't know how I'm going to get there.

I don't want to make myself sound that spontaneous, because I'm not.

It would look like a notebook with dividers, and there'd be different subjects and things [preschoolers] could do, so that they could feel like they were going to school also.